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ACADEMIC IDEALS 



ADDRESS OF 



EGBERT Si "WOODWARD 



AT THE 



OPENING EXERCISES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



SEPTEMBER 28, 1904 






^C^DEMIC IDEALS, 



The beginning of an academic year calls up at once 
the lighter thoughts of pleasing associations and the 
graver thoughts of inspiring obligations. Here on the 
table-land of intellectual life youth and age meet to 
labor for a season in the fields of knowledge and dis- 
covery. The confident optimism of youth seeks to be 
chastened by the gentle admonition of experience. 
Youth imparts its buoyancy to age, age imparts its 
wisdom to youth, and both are kindled by the glow of 
elevating aspirations. It is a time therefore for a 
blending of our lighter and our graver reflections. 

Being delegated for the moment to speak to and for 
this academic body it has seemed that some consid- 
erations on academic ideals might serve to awaken 
thought and to arouse zeal appropriate to the occasion. 
In the abstract, however, this would appear to be a 
delicate and a difficult subject; delicate because of 
diversity of sentiment, and difficult because of diver- 
sity of judgment, amongst those best qualified to 
speak, as to what academic ideals are, or as to what 
they should be. Hence it may seem fitting at the out- 
set to suggest application to the views here set forth of 
the Socratic caution that they can hardly be exactly 
as represented, if not the more sweeping caution of 
Marcus Aurelius — ^^ Remember that all is opinion.'^ 
But the delicacy and the difficulty of the subject are 
probably more apparent than real to us; for this is a 
university assembly, and it is one of the highest func- 
tions of a university to examine the various aspects of 

1 



2 ACADEMIC IDEALS. 

debatable questions without suppression of candor 
and without loss of humor. 

The typical American university of our time is a 
complex organization which has grown up rapidly 
from the typical American college of a half century 
ago. It has its undergraduate, its professional, and its 
postgraduate schools, as we see them in Columbia 
University to-day. It has a heterogeneous aggregate 
of students animated by a great variety of aims and 
purposes. Its curricula embrace courses of study 
and research quite unknown to the educated public of 
thirty or forty years ago; and its degrees recognize 
professions quite unheard of before the middle of the 
nineteenth century. Moreover, the modern American 
university has broken to a large extent with custom 
and tradition. It is an institution characterized by 
intellectual agitation, by adjustment and readjust- 
ment, by construction and reconstruction, the end of 
which is not yet in sight. This complex organization 
is the resultant of the more or less conflicting educa- 
tional activities of our times. It is a resultant due in 
part to world-wide influences; it expresses a general- 
ized academic ideal. 

Whatever may be our inherited prejudices or our 
calmer judgments, the attainment of this ideal must 
be regarded as a remarkable achievement. Here, for 
example, in this institution, we find all kinds of sub- 
jects of study from the most ancient to the most 
modern, from the most practical to the most theo- 
retical, from the most empirical to the most scientific, 
from the most materialistic to the most spiritualistic, 
all on a plane of intellectual equality and all equally 
available to those fitted to pursue them. Little surprise 
is manifested at the close juxtaposition of a professor 



By TranefBr 

MAY 241923 



ACADEMIC IDEALS. 3 

of metallurgy and a professor of metaphysics, and it has 
actually been demonstrated that professors of poetry 
and professors of physics can dwell in peaceful activity 
under the same roof. Here, too, the ten or a dozen 
faculties and the various student bodies mingle and 
intermingle in a spirit of cooperation and mutual regard 
almost unknown outside, and hitherto little known 
within, the academic world. 

The mere atmosphere, then, of a modern university 
must energize and elevate all those who come within 
its influence. But the domain of this atmosphere is 
not bounded by academic walls. It is not a limited 
medium within, but is actually a part of the unlimited 
medium of the intellectual world ; for the modern uni- 
versity has broken also with custom and tradition in 
allying itself closely with the external world of thought. 
Through interaction of the intramural and the extra- 
mural spheres of thought the instructor and the student 
are kept face to face with the vantage ground of con- 
temporary life, whence they may look forward as well 
as backward. 

The modern university is an institution of learning 
in the full sense of the word; an institution wherein 
instructors teach students, and wherein, reciprocally, 
to a very important degree, students teach instructors ; 
for that instructor is fossilized who does not learn 
more per year from his students, if they are worthy of 
the name, than they learn from him. Together they 
work diligently not only to become acquainted with 
the known, but still more diligently to penetrate the 
secrets of the unknown. Among them there is a sen- 
timent that condemns alike the instructor who would 
impart knowledge by the method of the rotatory cala- 
bash, and the student who, with saturnine stolidity, 



4 ACADEMIC IDEALS. 

would absorb only the information poured into his ears. 
Dwelling thus at a university, not apart from, but 
actually in, the world of contemporary thought, stu- 
dents may best fit themselves for the world of contem- 
porary life; and while they may justly esteem it a great 
privilege to graduate from an historic college, or from 
a professional school of international reputation, they 
should esteem it a far higher privilege to graduate 
from a great university. 

It should be observed also that the resultant ideal 
which has been attained in our best universities is not 
fixed but progressive, not inflexible but subject to im- 
provement. It is a development whose sources are 
seen in the earliest civilizations, whose growth was 
dimly perceived during the middle ages, and whose 
conscious appreciation is a realization of the century 
just past. The method which characterizes this de- 
velopment is the method of science. It dates essen- 
tially from the epoch of Galileo and Huygens. It 
rose to a maximum of brilliancy in its interpretation 
of material phenomena during the epoch of Newton 
and Leibnitz, and during the epoch of Laplace and 
Lavoisier; and it has recently illuminated a new 
domain through the labors of Darwin and Spencer. 
Galileo, Newton, and Laplace gave us a system of the 
inorganic world; Darwin and Spencer have given us 
a system which includes the organic world as well. 

The method of science has permeated all regions of 
thought and animated all of the commercial, indus- 
trial, political, social, and religious activities of men. 
Whether we welcome it, deplore it, or indifferently 
acquiesce in it, the fact seems undeniable that the 
method of science and the doctrine of evolution are the 
most effective sources of the intellectual enterprise of 



ACADEMIC IDEALS. 5 

our day. Through anthropology this method and this 
doctrine have given a transcendent interest to the 
study of man; for they show that man may not only 
investigate the rest of the universe, but that he may, 
by the same means, investigate himself. Consciously 
or unconsciously, the terminology, the figures of speech 
and the modes of thought of science are being applied 
to all subjects and objects of human concern. They 
have penetrated the depths and the darkness even of 
the polite literature of our times. 

But while the ideal thus outlined appears to be the 
effective, or working, ideal at which we have arrived, it 
goes without saying that it is not the only ideal enter- 
tained by those whose opinions on academic questions 
are worthy of regard. On the contrary, many eminent 
minds deplore present tendencies and write and speak 
regretfully of the vanishing ideals of the past. Grave 
publicists, accomplished men of letters, and subtle 
philosophers see little but danger in the educational 
readjustments of recent times. They deplore especially 
the dechne in popularity of those ancient studies long 
called the humanities and the contemporary rise and 
increasing recognition of the newer studies. Culture, 
they seem to claim, comes inevitably through the pursuit 
of the former, never through pursuit of the latter. They 
go so far in some cases as to decide at what point the 
study of a subject ceases to be liberal and begins to be 
illiberal, or professional. Give a student by the ancient 
formula, their facile editors say, that modicum of 
learning which would otherwise be dangerous, stamp 
him with the degree of A.B., and he becomes an aristo- 
crat. They take a gloomy view of the restless present 
and they are little hopeful of the future; for they hint 
darkly of ^Hhe bankruptcy of science '^ and of disasters 
impending if we do not return to ancient ideals. 



6 ACADEMIC IDEALS. 

Argument concerning these matters is fruitless. 
Logic avails as little in an educational campaign as 
political economy avails in a presidential campaign. 
Appeal must be had to our sense of humor and to the 
arbitrament of time. It may be observed, however, 
that these apostles of doubt and prophets of evil are 
slowly disappearing. They are more numerous outside 
than inside academic walls, they are less strenuous in 
large than in small colleges, and they are no longer 
dominant in the best universities. From a philo- 
sophic point of view they illustrate the action of a most 
interesting and usually beneficial sociological principle. 
When consciously applied this principle may be called 
the law of rational conservatism. When unconsciously 
applied it may be called, in analogy with a great phys- 
ical principle, the law of conservation of ignorance. It 
is so much more important for society to protect itself 
against the follies of the unwise than it is to profit by 
the improvements of the wise, that progress comes, 
generally, only painfully slowly. May we not entertain 
the hypothesis that the contemporary opponents of 
educational reforms have been animated towards them 
rather unconsciously than consciously? Having drunk 
deeply at certain fountains of learning they appear to 
be sure that there are no others. They seem to have 
been, and to be, always receding. For more than a 
thousand years, in fact, the gaze of most scholars has 
been fixed so steadfastly on the glories of the past 
that it has been possible to advance only by marching 
backwards. 

Through the unconscious action of the law of the 
conservation of ignorance we are always in danger of 
disproportionate estimates of educational values and 
of erroneous judgments in the larger affairs of life. 



ACADEMIC IDEALS. 7 

We involuntarily revert to precedent, commending 
what is old, condemning what is new. Thus, to give 
a concrete illustration, fear and panic would be visible 
in our faces if we did not understand the mythical 
significance of the names Phobos and Deimos lately 
apphed to the moons of the planet Mars; but very few 
of us would betray the slightest mental disquietude at 
our profound lack of knowledge of the properties of 
the atmosphere which is the medium of communica- 
tion between you and me in this room. Thus, also, in 
spite of the obvious aphorism that all men are human, 
they have been divided into humanists and non- 
humanists, Matthew Arnold, for example, being one 
of the former and the founder of our John Tyndall 
Fellowship being one of the latter. And stranger still, 
one might infer from the slowness of legal and consti- 
tutional reforms, and from many current arguments 
opposed thereto, that laws and constitutions are not 
made by men for men, but that, in some mysterious 
way, men are merely experimental material for the 
training of crafty lawyers and sagacious politicians. 

But we have broken irrevocably with the past; not 
in the sense of disregarding the rich heritage of experi- 
ence from our distinguished predecessors, but in the 
sense that their customs and traditions no longer domi- 
nate us. We have corrected their observations for 
geocentric parallax; and we must now correct their 
observations for anthropocentric parallax, just as our 
successors, if they prove progressive, will surely correct 
our blunders and avoid our errors. The need of cor- 
rection for anthropocentric parallax in educational 
affairs is now widely recognized. It leads to the 
investigations of Mosely Commissions, to the confer- 
ences of The Association of American Universities, 



8 ACADEMIC IDEALS. 

and to the broader conferences of World's Fair Con- 
gresses. It is the chief source of the educational activi- 
ties of our day. In these activities are to be seen the 
most hopeful signs of the times; for while agitation 
does not necessarily mean progress, serene contentment 
is pretty certain to mean stagnation, if not regress. 

And the readjustment now going on in the academic 
world must continue. It is a part, simply, of the re- 
adjustment going on in the intellectual world at large. 
We are, so to speak, in a state of unstable equilibrium, 
wherein mental repose can be purchased only at the 
price of mental somnolence. Great as have been the 
enlargement and the appreciation of educational and 
professional opportunities during the past three or 
four decades, we may confidently anticipate still wider 
enlargement and appreciation in the future. New 
divisions of knowledge may be expected to arise, and 
old divisions may be expected to undergo marked ex- 
pansion, redistribution, or emendation. The so-called 
humanities, especially, must be broadened, purified, and 
elevated if possible to the intellectual level of the more 
highly developed sciences. It is clear, indeed, that in 
any revision of the humanities some matters may be 
redistributed, if not discarded, with advantage. The 
reckless amours and the clandestine peccadilloes of 
ancient and modern royalty, for example, should be 
transferred from the historian and the novelist to the 
anthropologist, the alienist, and the pathologist. Such 
humanities, and many others of like kind, can hardly 
stand in comparison with the constancy of the stars and 
the beauties of harmonic analysis. 

All these matters of controversy, however, belong 
rather to the lower than to the higher life of auniversity. 
How a student acquires elementary training is an aca- 



ACADEMIC IDEALS. 9 

demic question in the narrower sense of the word. The 
world cares Uttle for educational ways and means unless 
they can commend themselves by results. Attain- 
ments must be tested by achievements and proficiency 
must be proved by progress. To rise to this standard 
of excellence is the ideal of the higher Hfe of a univer- 
sity. It is only by the pursuit of, and in the reahzation 
of, this ideal, that instructors and students may keep 
pace with and contribute' adequately to the advance- 
ment of modern knowledge. Those who would sepa- 
rate theory from practice, those who would draw lines 
of invidious distinction between pure and applied 
science, along with those who would mistake a part of 
archseology for the whole of education, are all alike 
inimical to the trend of current progress. 

It is the highest function of a university to cherish 
this ideal and to promote especially the arduous 
labors essential to fruitful original research. Those 
who can add somewhat to the sum and substance of 
permanent knowledge by the establishment of a phys- 
ical, a social, an aesthetic, or an ethical principle, are 
the greatest benefactors of our race. Of the many who 
feel drawn to this high calling, however, few are des- 
tined for fame. Only those who prefer the turmoil of 
conflicting thoughts to the tranquillity of inherited 
opinions, who can bear alike the remorseless discipline 
of repeated failure and the prosperity of partial suc- 
cess, may hope to attain renown. But, as those serve 
also who stand resolutely and toil patiently at their 
allotted tasks, so is there room in the grand aggregate 
of human achievement for the humblest as well as for 
the noblest of investigators. 

The ideals, then, of a modern university, like the 
ideals of the intellectual world at large, contemplate 



lO ACADEMIC IDEALS. 

achievement and progress in all grades of work from 
the lowest to the highest. They demand endless 
patience and unflagging industry from all who seek to 
rise above the dead level of mediocrity. The oppor- 
tunities now afforded for the pursuit of, for the acquire- 
ment of, and for the advancement of learning are 
greater than ever before. We are the heirs of the ages. 
But along with an increasing heritage there come 
increasing duties and increasing responsibiUties. It 
rests with us to show that we are worthy of this heri- 
tage and able to meet these duties and responsibilities. 
This is the line of endeavor we resume to-day, and the 
spirit of the hour bids us look forward with cheerful 
optimism. 



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